Luster in the DIrt
by Typhoid Beaver
Summary: ( To Nine Inch Nails - 'Hurt' ) If I changed, would you notice? Would you care? Would you still draw away from me? If I wronged you...would you forgive me?


_Luster in the Dirt_

:dodges thrown tomatoes: XxX NAAHH! I am sorry! I know, I should be working on the next part of _Sirenes_ ( I know how I want it to flow, I just don't know how to put it... (sweatdrop) ), but this listening to Johnny Cash's version of Nine Inch Nails' _Hurt _ has been nagging my keyboard for weeks... and once again, it is Graverobber centered... (sweatdrops again).

I own neither _Hurt _ nor Yuugiou. ...but consider this my tip-of-the-hat to the late Man in Black - outspoken, outcast, outlaw.

o-o-o-

He pulls his shoes on hurriedly, pianist hands having grown nimble in the task. An ivorn mane falls gently down his back, flickering like moonfire with the slight jerks of his shoulders. Chocolate eyes rivet on the worn sneakers, the timid depths unseeing of them. His ears strain themselves, aptly identifying every twinge in the quiet house. He prays.

Pale fingers falter as a rustle is heard.

He freezes, caught in headlights of apprehension, forgetting to breathe as the pause grows long. Breaking the trance, he scrambles upright and straightens his uniform, ignoring his still untied shoes. He takes long strides to the door; he has to leave now. Now. He extends a hand for the doorknob -

No such luck.

"Yadounushi."

He feels his heart hit the roof of his mouth, vainly pleading with fate that the voice behind him is illusory. Fake. Imagined. _Anywhere _but there.

"Y...yes..?" he responds hesitantly; his voice tremors, no matter how desperately he tries stifling it. He refuses to turn. Another stretch of silence dominates the small room. A void of disacknowledgement, becoming a tumor of the exchange.

They look the same, and at first glance one does not think otherwise. They could not be further from so.

His are brown, but almost flinted eyes, unreadable as he studies the other. Avalanche locks, not unlike the other boy's sweep long and thick. Surely they are the same, one might think. That one must not blame themselves for such a mistake.

"WIll you face me?" The grating drawl makes the other boy cringe; he did not sense the hidden emotion in it. The only feeling he hears is anger, the very emotion embodied by the form behind him. He presumed it immediately, almost innately. After all, why would someone such as the other change his ways? He had enjoyed them so many times. So many.

"I...I have to go." he chokes, as if his throat has suddenly frozen. The door shuts with a swift slam.

He stands, statued in the hallframe. A wistful haze of regret accompanies the void. His chest becomes heavy with tension, and he leaves the remnant room.

Outside, a bird twitters the virgin notes of dawn.

**/I hurt myself today**

**To see if I still feel**

**I focus on the pain**

**The only thing that's real**

**The needle tears a hole**

**The old familiar sting**

**Try to kill it all away**

**But I remember everything/**

The mirror has been broken for so long, he doesn't even recall when it happened. He just stares dully, almost dazedly at the shards held in place. A fang-strewn grin; he sees his eyes, heavy and cold, as if wrought from a fallen oak; he sees them again, and again, and again, and again.

_Of course their not yours, foolish boy._ A voice answers his unasked question - rather, a question he had not even considered. His fist tenses; his knuckles blanch as he clutches the sink.

Unbidden the voice continued. _You can only take. You've taken lives, souls, hope..._ It seems to pause; perhaps to smirk? _Innocence?_

His lips skin back. Pearly jags, like snow-capped moutains gleam in opaque windowlight.

An unearthly, scraping noise emits form his throat. His mane fairly bristles. "_Shut up!_"

The mirror's grin is lost in the resounding shatter, small scarlet streams running down light skin.

He is transfixed upon where the mirror remains once were. But there is only a black frame.

**/What have I become? **

**My sweetest friend**

**Everyone I know**

**Goes away in the end**

**You could have it all**

**My empire of dirt**

**I will let you down**

**I will make you hurt/**

"_I will fight you! I won't let you control me! I won't let you win! Never!"_

He gingerly pulls shards from his fist, wincing. The jagged openings gape, red life pouring like hateful words. _You can take his very life, but could you ever give it back?_

He ignores it. Ignores his hand. It trembles.

**/I wear my crown of thorns**

**On my liar's chair**

**Full of broken thoughts**

**I cannot repair**

**Beneath the stain of time**

**The feeling disappears**

**You are someone else**

**I am still right here/**

"_You tried to kill my friends!"_

The bedroom is deathly quiet. He is. He reads it again.

_Dear Amane..._ in such neat, tidy scrawl, not a mark out of line. He doesn't realize his blood is staining the back.

"_I hate you! Why can't you leave me alone!"_

A suffocating knot knooses his throat. He swallows, chokes; it remains.

"_I wish you would just go away!"_

The letter suddenly blurs. Everything blurs.

**/What have I become? **

**My sweetest friend**

**Everyone I know**

**Goes away in the end**

**You could have it all**

**My empire of dirt**

**I will let you down**

**I will make you hurt/**

He says nothing. Sees little.

"_Leave me alone!"_

All he sees is all he stares at. It glints, the vibrant spikes splayed as the Ring lay hung upon a corner bedpost.

'If... if I could have another chance...' His hand bleeds again, clenched; his teeth grit, eyes burning.

'If I could go back... I...'

But he doesn't know.

**/If I could start again**

**A million miles away**

**I would keep myself**

**I would find a way/**

o-o-o-

As always, thanks for reading. nvn


End file.
